Cross Platform OS

Looking at the minimal designs and possible references to the new operating systems on the WWDC 13 conference centre posters, I wanted to moot the idea that what Apple are going to announce in the keynote is a cross platform OS (7 & X) and gauge peoples' feelings on whether they think it workable and possibly revolutionary for Apple:

What I was initially struck by were the 'Mac Pro'-esque dots as the background to the '7' poster and the minimal references alongside the colourful splash/wave design on the 'X' poster ~ Recent years have seen the integration of tried and tested solutions from one platform to the other, and recent years have also seen a more 'mobile' feel to the Mac OS X workflow, esp. with Mountain Lion.

With the possibility of Siri and possibly iPhone touch screen functionality being ported to desktop computing, wouldn't it make sense to develop these technologies as one?

I definitely don't mean a direct port of one OS to the other, but a Jonny Ive redesign of the UI would be a unique opportunity to replicate the user experience on both OS's and unify much more of the functionality?

A dedicated OS for each but a look and the same 'feel' whatever the platform.

I'm saying you're going to have a serious amount of trouble trying to make an OS that works (at all) with both multitouch and m+k. There's really no way to do it correctly.

Even in the stuff I've been drawing up for the post-mouse future of desktops, I don't have iOS and OS X merge. iOS is too small and weak, OS X is too complex and powerful. You can't have the former on a desktop and you wouldn't want the latter on a portable.

Now, the "look" part of look and feel is a given. Since Lion, we can see that Apple's converging looks. You're absolutely right about that, and I definitely think we'll see more of that tomorrow. Operation will come close when we drop the mouse on the desktop, but I don't believe they'll ever be 1:1.

What I hope we'll see tomorrow is a commitment to making iOS and OS X as absolutely seamlessly transferable as possible. There's no excuse whatsoever for iWork on iOS to use different files than iWork on OS X, for example. Also seamless should be their feature sets, within reason. There will always be many powerful things impossible on a tablet, even when Apple does do 12" and 15" iPads. And there will always be things that work things to do on portables that will be impossible on the desktop.

It's like… hmm… Well, it's like how "iOS" on the Apple TV isn't iOS. And it's like how iPhone OS 1.0, which is OS X, wasn't actual OS X. You know?

Looking at the minimal designs and possible references to the new operating systems on the WWDC 13 conference centre posters, I wanted to moot the idea that what Apple are going to announce in the keynote is a cross platform OS (7 & X) and gauge peoples' feelings on whether they think it workable and possibly revolutionary for Apple:

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This question gets asked and answered too many times to count. iOS and OS X are the same beneath the skin. They have different UIs as are appropriate for the vastly different hardware supported by OS X and iOS. It seems that most people forget [or never knew] that before it was iOS, it was iPhone OS. Before it was iPhone OS, it was OS X--OS X 10.5, to be exact. The original iPhone ran OS X 10.5 months before MacOS X 10.5 was released.

The UIs for OS X and iOS will continue to crib from each other. However, they will not be blended into "one OS" in the sense of what Microsoft has done with the various versions of Windows. If Apple wanted to do such a dumb thing, then it could have done so back in 2007 or tomorrow morning.

What I hope we'll see tomorrow is a commitment to making iOS and OS X as absolutely seamlessly transferable as possible.

I would agree whole heartedly; I consider myself a power user, Pro Apps (FCP and LOGIC, and ADOBE) being my primary usage, but my excitement has been blunted over the last couple of years that the boundless possibilities and potential of iOS integration into desktop and Macbook 'power' machines has not, in my opinion, been as fully utilised as it could have been.

I have seen some remarkable innovations, and ballsy decisions, made over the future of 'pro' workflows over the last couple of years by Apple (I'll cite FCP X as my primary example); but a trick has been missed I feel in terms of how devices such as the iPad and iPhone could be innovatively integrated by Apple into core OS X services, rather than through third party API and device app development; and I feel that part of this is down to Apple choosing to eschew some of the definitive functionality of iOS and carrying that through to OS X, and making a conscious decision to hold back on mixing the feature sets of these operating systems. I am not, of course, privy to the complicated political 'big picture', but I will watch with anticipation the keynote this Monday.